116: 3 Saboteurs That Stop You From Winning at Work and at Home

Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to today's podcast. We are into the middle of February. Can you believe it? It might be cold or it might be warm or might be sunny. I don't really know because I'm recording this ahead of time. As I mentioned before, I'm doing some batch episodes. However, now I have moved to my basement to record, not in the closet, but just in the big basement because there are people upstairs in the room next to my daughter's room, removing a desk.

I have a feeling, my friends, that I'm going to have to be very flexible over the next few months. But it is good to make some progress and get my thoughts down on paper with the messages that I want to share with you in the podcast. That's really what I do think about this. I think this is a message I share and some learning and hopefully, give you some tools to put in your toolbox.

Today's tool in the toolbox is something that will help you determine why you may be not going after your goal as you would like. It has to do a little bit between the relationship of your business and your house, business and home, or work and home, however we want to lay that out.

As I've been writing my book, I've been thinking about this more and thinking about how this shows up for my clients. I've come up with three reasons why I think successful women entrepreneurs do not go after what they want. Let's dig in.

A lot of women don't go after what they want with gusto, I will say. They are no longer just a girl with a dream. They see themselves as women with a lot of responsibilities. Women with a lot of responsibilities really think about things sometimes or they're on autopilot and we're going to kind of talk about that too. But when they don't go after what they want, it kind of manifests itself in three different ways.

Number one: I think the reason they don't go after what they want is that they really have lost touch with knowing, with the knowing of what they want. They don't pause and ask themselves questions. Life just keeps moving full speed ahead. Taking time to pause and ask themselves these questions or what the questions should even be, it all just seems hard.

Even really taking time to examine what their business looks like currently, and where they want it to go from there seems challenging, which is one reason why I do my Get a Grip masterclass several times a year because that affords you the opportunity to pause and go through a guided process of where your business is at and where you want it to go.

But pausing here doesn't necessarily always happen for several reasons, but one of which when it comes to business is that they think they should be making money with that time instead. Like, “Shouldn't I just be doing this myself instead of delegating? Shouldn't I just be making money instead of assessing where I'm at and where I want to go?”

At home, there's some guilt that goes along with this, “Shouldn't I be playing with my kids more, pausing to play with my kids more, but I have all these other things that need to get done? Laundry, dishwasher, chores, billing, papers.” Number one reason that women don't really go after their goals is because they have lost touch with knowing and you can see how that plays out both at home and in their business.

I think a great example of this is my client who had started to ask herself these questions. But her business was just kind of going on autopilot. Nothing was really wrong, but it was feeling kind of heavy. It was going but it wasn't going with great guns. It wasn't thriving, and she certainly wasn't driving it, and she wasn't loving it. But nor was she really loving what was happening at home and home was sort of on autopilot too, like it was Groundhog's Day every day.

She wasn't really going after her goal in the way she wanted but nor did she have the ability or kind of wherewithal to pause or to direct herself to pause and assess. That is why she sought out some coaching because she knew that would give her the space to do it. It's kind of like when you go to physical therapy and they give you a bunch of exercises to help you get better, but you start feeling better, you're still existing, so you don't pause during your day to do the exercises.

Also, pausing during your day to do these exercises is hard. Because you feel like there are so many other things that you should be doing and you'll get to exercise later. You stop knowing really how you feel.

The second reason: women that do know what they want, so they have pause, they do know what they want, but they're afraid to admit it. They think it's wrong or it's selfish to want what they want and what they want doesn't really show that they have appreciation for what they already have, or so they think. They have guilt in the wanting so they don't even talk about it. They hold it inside.

They think people would judge them or that they're too ambitious. If they actually went after what they wanted, they would appear kind of out of the norm and they might lose some friends over it. That second reason is the woman who does know what she wants, but she's afraid to admit it because she feels like it's selfish or wrong and doesn't show appreciation for what she already has.

My client who has three kids under the age of six, married to a husband, it's kind of one of those cushion relationships, if you listened to Episode 115, she knows what she wants. She actually has a very clear vision of it even and she also has a lot of guilt for wanting what she wants because she feels that if she expresses what she wants, she's not appreciating what she already has, which are three healthy children living in a financially stable home, with family supporting her. She does have her own business that is definitely profitable and successful, but she wants more and she's afraid to say it.

She's afraid to say it for a couple of reasons. Number one: she grew up in a place where wanting more was not really talked about. It was just wanting to survive. Number two: if she wants more, that means she's probably going to need more from other people. She's going to need help and support. She's going to need childcare. She's going to need to make some sacrifices.

She actually is okay with that except for she is afraid of what other people will think. I think the third reason that she's afraid to go after this is because she questions whether or not she is worthy of having what she wants. When she came to me, she reluctantly shared what she wanted, and when we created a business plan around it, she couldn't believe what was possible once she put it all down on paper and admitted it.

Now, it's led to her having some difficult conversations with her husband. But conversations nonetheless that are moving her in the right direction. The second reason is someone who knows what they want, but they're afraid to admit it because they feel it's wrong or selfish and that they should be more appreciative.

Which brings me to the third. The third reason is someone that knows what they want but expects to just get there without changing their mindset or their methods. I always like to say, “The mind that created the problem can't solve the problem. The same mind that created the problem can't solve the problem.” This is what they're trying to do, they're trying to solve their problem or reach their goal with the same thinking and systems that they've been using in the past.

Since they're not getting there, they're not reaching their goal, they are disappointed and they sometimes quit. They don't want to expend any more effort or brainpower. They're burnt out. They're done. They think they've spent enough brainpower on this.

A great example of this is my client who knew what she wanted, she wasn't afraid to admit it, but she wasn't getting to the goal because she was doing all the things that she had done in the past but they just weren't working for this new endeavor that she was embarking on.

This was something like a new level of her business, a new kind of facet of her business. She was trying all of the things that had worked for the first facet and the first level of success, but now getting to that second level of success, it required her the new thinking and systems and she just didn't have them. So she felt like she was spinning her wheels like it was a hamster wheel, or one of those little Fred Flintstone cars where you're running really fast, but you get nowhere.

What was going on is that as she was spinning her wheels, she started to feel more and more like, “Should I just forget it? Should I just throw the towel in?” But she had enough wherewithal to reach out. Once we started working together, and me really acting almost as a sounding board and someone to ask her questions, she was able to figure out what needed to happen next.

She knew what she wanted. She was not afraid to admit it. She had verbalized it. But she hadn't used any new thinking, systems, or methods to get it. She was starting to reach a point where she was like, “Maybe this isn't going to work after all. I'm tired.” You can see that really, regardless of whether the reason you're not getting to your goal is a one, two, or three, your work, your business, and your home are all tied into it like your relationships with people are all tied to this and your relationship to yourself is tied to it.

I think that's really important for everybody to notice that relationships are also just comprised of thoughts, relationships aren't facts, but yet they play such an important role in your success. A lot of times people come to me and they just want to get to the action line. “Just tell me what to do, Andrea.” What they really need to do is to change the way they're thinking. They need to change the way they think about their time so they have time enough to pause and contemplate what they really want.

They need to think about how they view themselves as worthy to eliminate that self-doubt. They also need to think about what they could be doing differently that they're not doing. Really, this is all about thinking not necessarily about action. That's really important to recognize; the relationship here between home and business.

My friends, which one are you? These four women are all in different situations. They're in different stages of life, but they battle a similar thought process. They are experiencing here what I call cognitive dissonance. On one hand, they think reaching this goal is believable. But on the other, it's just not possible. It's kind of like conflicting beliefs and desires and it really creates this “I'm stuck” kind of situation.

“I'm stuck” equals stuck stress. That kind of stress gets worse as time goes on. Go listen to the episode on stuck stress. This is the kind of stress that moves your mind in 100 different directions. It doesn't allow you to focus and it leaves you going to bed at night asking, “What did I do today?” and waking up in the morning and saying, “Here we go again.”

If that's you, we can change this, my friends. You can change this. You can do what all of these women I just talked about did. They sought some new learning and guidance, new thinking, and new environment, they surrounded themselves with women who wanted the same. That's available to you too and that's what we do inside I've Got This, Runway to Freedom, and on VIP Days. That's what coaching is. It is new thinking and new systems, methods, and processes for you to get to the goal.

Let's talk, and who else do you know that might need this message? Please share this episode with just one person who you think is ready to level up because there's no better time than right now. See you next time.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.